[MAP CONTEST] Motorway 66 Feedback Thread

This thread is for all feedback related to the map "Motorway 66" as part of Relic's 2v2 Map Making Contest. This map has made by a member of the community and they would LOVE of your feedback to help them iterate on and improve their map before the next submission deadline of the contest.

Comments

Played two games on this map. Enjoyed both of them. Felt like a really good map. Beautiful design but still suitable for COH2 mechanics and gameplay. Probably also pretty decent for axis/allies balance.

GOOD:
1. There are a lot of great areas from woodsy to urban to highways.
2. The minimap showing areas around the lake that cannot be traversed is a very nice touch. Some people also like to cut out sight blockers as well, but sometimes the capture areas get too busy.
3. The lake/dam design is very cool.

BAD:
1. The most glaring issue is the river along the top right. The right side is punished and choked off with red cover while the left side gets full health buildings to fight out of.
2. The large church over looking the top fuel will create the 1st team here wins type of foot race at the start of the game.
3. There are a large number of full health buildings.
4. All of the buildings and VPs are in the north. All initial play will be to push the top urban area.
5. The Bottom section has large elevation changes. This may cause units to shoot the ground instead of the object they are shooting at.

POSSIBLE CHANGES:
1. The urban area could use some love. Maybe add some hedges, bikes, posts etc. Add more splats/splines and blending.
2. Swap the bottom fuel and VP points to create more interest in the southern part of the map.
3. The tall wire fence by the log stack at the bottom could be removed to allow more freedom of movement for the east base players.
4. Could move the top river section to the middle of the map and around the church on both sides. Or just split the river and Y it off to the left as well as right sides. This would also remove some of the full strength buildings.
5. The buildings in the south look imbalanced because the smaller has limited windows to fight out of. But the way it is layed out visually looks nice. Maybe lose the large building and replace it with a similarly cool little building setup.

SCORE:
7/10 - This map has a really cool feel since you can fight thru a nice feeling little village. Its current layout has the river issue and mimics Lorch Assaults VP layout which many players hate. This map would be a great Bot Stomp map for sure!

The Lake/Dam splits the map in two. Creating basically two 1v1 maps. Since most of the VPs are north it may work out cool since it may actually push all four armies into a giant battle in the small north urban section.

The visual presentation of this map is very impressive. Additionally, it plays in a fun and unique way. We enjoyed the intense combat that happens for the two VP's in the urban North, which was contrasted by the skirmishy combat in the southern woodlands. The Motorway VP and river crossings also made for some interesting moments.

We feel that this map could benefit from an extra territory point closer to each team's base. As it stands there is a lot of empty space here.

We feel that there is a house that gives an advantage to the western base at the northern fuel point.

We feel the southern munitions point favours the western base due to the negative cover was given by the river to those crossing from the east. This is not balanced out by the northern munitions which feels neutral.

There are a couple of blocks of heavy cover inside the capture area for the southern fuel point. These blocks give the overall advantage at this point to the team from the eastern base.

On the whole, the southern half of this map doesn't have enough incentive for players to commit a lot of resources towards it. A potential idea would be moving the northern munitions point to the south of the map. This might provide a meaningful tactical choice for players.

Motor Way 66
Good.
1. Very nice to look at
2. Open allow for rolling tank engagements
3. Very large map for a 2v2 map
4. The dam has good cover
5. The town makes for excellent early game fighting
6. The map is very large for a 2v2 resulting in long range engagements
7. The map is very anti fortress which can be interpreted as good or bad forcing players to constantly adapt to new circumstances
Bad.
1. To easy to flank
2. The gameplay is very make or break with tanks dictating the play
3. AT guns are almost irrelevent due to the fact that they can be easily flanked
4. Bridge is reasonably irrelevent as it can be very easily flanked and smashed with artillery

GOOD
1. very different feel for the map as it is very open
2. a very aesthetically pleasing map
3. very large map for a 2v2 this allows for better spacing of troops
4. cover placed very effectively on the bridge
5. great map for short matches

BAD
1. bridge is probably not as significant to the map as I thought it would be as it is easy to flank and ignore crossing over the bridge
2. also very easy to avoid the town and flank behind enemy troops in the early game
3. little if not not any choke points that can be utilised throughout the game
4. little to no cover out in the open fields for infantry to use
5. lots of full health buildings in the town which should be changed to more middle to low health buildings

MISCELLANEOUS
1. capture points are mirrored and has a mirrored feeling to the map

Overall map balance
It looks not that balanced personally. 2 VPs on top design makes south points nearly empty, it will be taken by fast caping units (like kubelwagen). Saying about kubelwage, it will be very unbalanced because of that in my opinion, cheap unit can easily take point and player not afraid to lose it. Otherwise, allies would be forced to move more expensive or more amount of troops for decaping, weakening north side point contest. Also both allies and axis can use garison call-ins for decaping once in a minute and ambushing coming troops, or can lockdown it with some emplacements like bofors, flak or OKW Shwerer T3 building.

Cover balance/design
Green cover almost on every point, making fights longer and not that profitable in early/mid game.

Balance of garisonable buildings
A lot of full hp medium type garisons and 1 75% hp heavy garison, can be abused with soviet forward base both sides, giving superior advantage especially on north side. HP must be reduced to 25/10% or amount of garisons must be reduced.

VP and resource balance/design
As was mentioned before, north side VP design is what I don't like on this map. Bridge VP design is not that good too, should be moved more north or south nearby bridge, so there will no need of redesign whole area and bridge will become mostly decorative object. East VP looks and feels more easy to defend comparing to west VP because of walls placement and garison nearby bridge.

Visuals
Visually map is looking good, only minimaps water color/design feels not very good.

Readability/lighting
Ok

Cutoff design
South fuel can be cutoffed by taking only 1 point, which has only 1 green cover nearby, so contesting it for defending player will almost impossible. North side can be cutoffed with 2 points that will not be tried to be cutoffed at all without big advantage. Feels not good.

Infantry and vehicle pathing
Infantry pathing is ok, light vehicle get stuck between hay and bridge on west VP and between 2 objects on left nearby church garison.

Line of sight
A lot of walls blocking vision on north side making close combat units and flame units (flamethrower upgrade) really strong early game. It will be a lot easier to win playing Ostheer, OKW on east spawn. Needs to redesigned.

Combat feel/flow
Winner can be revealed in first 7-10 minutes of the match because of the VP design. Contesting south side is not profitable at all, since its too far away from VPs and capturing it can be cutoffed with 1 point and time lost for capture is time for enemy to dig in into north side even more with 2 VPs. On the other hand, OKW can actually comeback pretty fast from garison situation with stuka, that is one more advantage for axis side.

General polish
Redesign of VPs, garison HP fix, if no VP redesign coming, left/right VP design should be redesigned so they can be defended equally. Bridge VP should be moved from the bridge. Cutoffs redesign needed, maybe reversing will help (2 points to cut on south side and 1 for north side). Pathing issues should be fixed, minimap visual tweaks needed and description the map add (not necessary but will be good)

Overall map feel
This map needs a lot of work so it can be played equally by both spawns. Otherwise it feels too big and empty, comparing to Vaux Farmlands maps. I would give 4/10 at this state.

This map genuinely looks great like a scenery from a countryside, though I think the map balance could be improved.

Some fuel points and ammo points do seem slightly favored to the team on the left side or player 1,2 on fixed locations, the top fuel point has a extra full health building on the left facing directly to the fuel point, making defending much easier. The middle ammo point has great vision for the left team to watch out for attackers, with a green cover brick fence facing directly to the possible attackers, even if the right team manages to take this point, left team could still garrison the buildings close to them to slow and pin down attackers.

All in all, it's an awesome looking map and I would love to play it regularly if it is more balanced.